


now i'm lying awake

by oogenesis



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Gen, Not Beta Read, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7645432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oogenesis/pseuds/oogenesis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one has ever seen the King sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	now i'm lying awake

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this really fast and it's not terribly good oops

No one has seen the King sleep. No one knows if he takes off his armor to do so or if he sleeps inside it; if he lies still or if he stirs, if he curls up or stretches out. All they know is that he will vanish into odd corners of the castle at irregular times, and reemerge some time later - ten hours, five hours, one. He makes no mention of this, and neither does anyone else.

(The subject itself is taboo. The King who has managed to rise to such a position above all of them is still, after all, a human, a thing of heavy and demanding flesh that must be fed and rested. He does not like anyone in his army of spirits to be reminded of this, and so no one dares remind themselves - not that there is any need, for he is so formidable that his origin is of little importance. But still - the King is human. The King eats and bleeds and wears monstrous spikes to appear as something more than a soft body of flesh and the King _sleeps_.)

No one has seen the King sleep. But one spirit -

She is patrolling the lower levels of the castle, near the storerooms where the trophies from the defeated are stored. It is a routine assignment. She is bored and her scales itch.

A quiet wavering keening issues from behind one of the locked doors.

She snaps into a defensive stance, disk at the ready, at the mere shock of a sound she knows is reserved for battlefields. Then the noise goes quiet. 

Her first thought is that one of the human prisoners must have escaped - but then, why would they come from the cells to here, in the opposite direction of any exit -

"No," says the voice. "I don't want -" It dissolves itself into mumbling and ah yes, that would be sleep talking. She recognizes the noise from when they have attacked villages at night, indistinct murmurs issuing from beds as she and her comrades stand poised to strike.

So, a human has somehow fallen asleep in the storeroom. She is reaching for the door handle when _something_ hits her with the force of a gale - an overwhelming pressure that pops in her ears, clenches in her throat, and -

It's the King. It's the _King._ She's felt this pressure before, in the moments when he is at his angriest, and all his underlings can barely remain standing before the overbearing aura of intimidation that presses out from him. Only, this -

\- this is different. It mingles itself with a cracked wail from behind the door, and the guard feels dizzy not with fear, but with something harder to define, heavy like a stone in her stomach.

Despair.

The King's aura is a howling maelstrom of despair.

"No," sobs the voice that she now recognizes - so hard to do so, with its steel edges replaced by whimpers - "no, no, no, they're gone, they're GONE -"

It is taking all of her willpower not to sink to her knees under the weight of the grief and remorse pouring out from behind the door.

"Please!" The King is begging now. His voice sounds too young - a terrified child. "I'll risk anything, I'll do anything - please -" and the words dissolve into another wail and the air is wailing with him and -

there is a sudden crash and clatter.

The feeling heavy upon her like a blanket recedes.

She thinks wildly, he must have been moving around - knocked something over, fallen over - woken up -

It occurs to her that in a moment he will emerge from that door. She does not think she could bear to witness that. She turns and runs.

.

Two days later she is summoned before the King.

This is unexpected, but not a surprise. He is in the habit of calling upon soldiers at random for status reports - making sure there is discipline at all levels of the army. Keeping them on their best behavior, never knowing when they might be summoned.

As she climbs through the hallways of the castle that wind upward she ruminates on the discovery of two days before. She isn't very well-versed in humans, but - aren't dreams prophetic sometimes? And it would make sense that someone so godlike, so powerful as the King would have prophetic dreams. The screaming she heard could bode something ill for their empire. She will ask about it.

He is in his throne room, standing before the great openness in the wall that looks out upon the death and ruin that his reign has unleashed upon this world. He always speaks to his subordinates in a manner that lets them see that view behind him. A reminder.

"Snoww," he greats her as she kneels. He is a figure of spikes and shining black armor, a stance of command and power - it echoes in his footsteps as he turns and walks towards her and flutters in the redness of his cape behind him. Already she can feel the pressure of his aura bearing down on her.

"Your Majesty," she blurts out, before he can begin interrogating her. "I have a question. I mean, a concern."

She immediately regrets interrupting him. The weight of his golden gaze, burning from the shadows under his helm, settles upon her in full. All he says, however, is "Continue."

"The other day," she says, and squeezes her eyes shut, "I heard you - talking in your sleep."

He says nothing. Her eyes are closed and she cannot see his reaction, but something in the air shifts and settles.

"You were crying," she says, "and screaming. I thought - I thought it might be some kind of prophecy?"

She opens her eyes.

His eyes are gold and they are burning and they drill into her and he says slow and soft, "What do you mean?"

"If you saw something in your sleep that could be dangerous to our forces..." Her voice trails off, and she realizes that if this was indeed a prophetic dream, a lowly soldier such as her has no right to be asking about it.

She also realizes that the King looks - confused. On anyone else it would be a sign of weakness; on him it is volatile and dangerous. The situation is being made unpredictable. His eyes bore into her, demanding an answer.

(He doesn't remember.)

She offers. "You were... crying. You were saying no..."

The memory rises to the forefront of her mind - the screaming, the begging, the whimpering like a motherless child. It frames the King standing before her and she realizes that under the armored shell of spikes he is rather slight. His face, she sees with a shock, is very young.

From her kneeling angle she can see the edges of soft brown hair under the helmet.

"Either you are mistaken in your senses," says the King with a foreboding weight, "or you are lying."

Stupid! She should have kept her mouth shut.

He turns and walks with measured pace back to the great window, his hands behind his back. "Do you realize," he says to the ruined landscape, "how dangerous a false rumor is to the integrity of this world I have built?"

She says nothing.

"Guards!" calls the King, and his voice echoes through the stone room, the way his sobbing had echoed through the hallway. The door creaks open.

He turns over his shoulder to look at the guards as they enter. "She has the potential to spread falsehoods. She is dangerous." Almost like an afterthought, he adds, "Kill her."

Ah. So this is how it is.

Foolish, foolish, foolish. She should have waited - should have found out more - should have skirted around he edges of the King's vast burning secret, peering carefully inside. But now -

Then they are dragging her out of the chamber and the King is a soft thing in a spiky silhouette before the sleepless blue comet blazing in the sky. The doors close with a final boom and he is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from bodyache by purity ring which always makes me think of haou for some reason. anyway please remember to leave a comment etc


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